Vasily Aksyonov

Vasily Aksyonov was born to Pavel Aksyonov and Yevgenia Ginzburg in Kazan, USSR on August 20, 1932. His mother, Yevgenia Ginzburg, was a successful journalist and educator and his father, Pavel Aksyonov, had a high position in the administration of Kazan. Both parents "were prominent communists." Vasily's half-brother Alexei (from Ginzburg's first marriage to Dmitriy Fedorov) died from starvation in besieged Leningrad in 1941. His parents, seeing that doctors had the best chance to survive in the camps, decided that Aksyonov should go into the medical profession. "He therefore entered the Kazan University and graduated in 1956 from the First Pavlov State Medical University of St. Peterburg" and worked as a doctor for the next 3 years. During his time as a medical student he came under surveillance by the MGB, who began to prepare a dossier against him. It is likely that he would have been arrested had the liberalisation that followed Stalin's death in 1953 not intervened. ==Career==

Reportedly, "during the liberalisation that followed Stalin's death in 1953, Aksyonov came into contact with the first Soviet countercultural movement of zoot-suited hipsters called stilyagi (the ones 'with style')." In the 1960s Aksyonov was a frequent contributor to the popular Yunost ("Youth") magazine and eventually became a staff writer. Aksyonov thus reportedly became "a leading figure in the so-called "youth prose" movement and a darling of the Soviet liberal intelligentsia and their western supporters: his writings stood in marked contrast to the dreary, socialist-realist prose of the time." "Aksyonov's characters spoke in a natural way, using hip lingo, they went to bars and dance halls, had premarital sex, listened to jazz and rock'n'roll and hustled to score a pair of cool American shoes." "Soon afterwards, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship, regaining it only 10 years later during Gorbachev's perestroika." "He [also] taught literature at a number of [other] American universities, including USC and Goucher College in Maryland... [and] worked as a journalist for Radio Liberty." "He continued to write novels, among which was the ambitious Generations of Winter (1994), a multi-generational saga of Soviet life that became a successful Russian TV mini-series." He was reportedly "forever a hipster [and] was used to being in the avant garde, be it in fashion or literary innovation." He was described as "a colourful man, with his trademark moustache, elegant suits, expensive cars, and a love for grand cities, fine wine and good food." On July 6, 2009, he died in Moscow at the age of 76. He is buried at the Vagankovo Cemetery in Moscow. ==Political views==

Vasily Aksyonov was a convinced anti-totalitarian. On the presentation of one of his last novels, he stated: "If in this country one starts erecting Stalin statues again, I have to reject my native land. Nothing else remains." ==Novels==

His other novels include: • Colleagues ("Коллеги" – Kollegi, 1960) • Ticket to the Stars ("Звёздный билет" – Zvyozdny bilet, 1961) • Oranges from Morocco ("Апельсины из Марокко" – ''Apel'siny iz Marokko'', 1963) • ''It's Time, My Friend, It's Time ("Пора, мой друг, пора" – Pora, moy drug, pora'', 1964) • ''It's a Pity You Weren't with Us ("Жаль, что вас не было с нами" – Zhal', chto vas ne bylo s nami'', 1965) • "Half-way To The Moon" ("На полпути к Луне", 1966) • Overstocked Packaging Barrels ("Затоваренная бочкотара" – Zatovarennaya bochkotara, 1968) • "My Grandfather Is A Monument" ("Мой дедушка – памятник", 1970) • "Love for Electricity" ("Любовь к электричеству", 1971) • In Search of a Genre ("В поисках жанра" – V poiskakh zhanra, 1972) • "Our Golden Piece Of Metal ("Золотая наша Железка", 1973) • "The Burn" ("Ожог", 1975) • Translation of E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime into Russian (1976) • The Island of Crimea ("Остров Крым" – "Ostrov Krym", 1979) • "The Steel Bird and Other Stories" ("Стальная Птица и Другие Рассказы", 1979) • "Paper Landscape" ("Бумажный пейзаж", 1982) • Say Cheese ("Скажи изюм" – Skazhi izyum, 1983) • In Search of Melancholy Baby ("В поисках грустного бэби" – V poiskakh grustnogo bebi, 1987) • Yolk of the Egg (written in English, author's translate in Russian – "Желток яйца" – Zheltok yaytsa, 1989) • Generations of Winter (English ed. of "Московская сага", 1994). Random House. . • ''The Winter's Hero'' (English ed. of Tiur ma i mir, 1996). Random House. . • The New Sweet Style ("Новый сладостный стиль" – Novy sladostny stil', 1998) • "Cesarean" ("Кесарево свечение", 2000) • Voltairian Men and Women ("Вольтерьянцы и вольтерьянки" – Volteryantsy i volteryanki, 2004 – won the Russian Booker Prize). • Moscow ow ow ("Москва Ква-Ква" – Moskva Kva-Kva, 2006) • Rare Earths ("Редкие земли" – Redkie zemli, 2007) == Theatre ==

• Colleagues 1959 • Always In Sale 1965 • Duel 1969 • The Four Temperaments published in the Literary Almanac "Metropol", New York and London 1979, ==Literature==

• "The Poet Vasily Aksyonov" essay 1980 and thesis of Herbert Gantschacher for obtaining the academic title "Master of Arts" at the Academy, today University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz, Re / 1653/1988, July 1988 • "A Life 'In A Burning Skin'" essay by Jürgen Serke in "The Banned Poets", Hamburg 1982, ==References==